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PAST PENSÉES August 2008
The Perfect Libra Man. (A song inspired by the film "Grey Gardens") Born in October when weather gets colder April 22, 2008: Happy Earth Day. August 2007 The Paris Metro sings in E major, in case you were wondering. March 2007 Paris has lit up my heart. I stick a baguette in the basket of my borrowed bicycle and pedal around the rues and passages with unmitigated joy, feeling both excited and immensely calm, as though I have been waiting all my life to simply be here. The city tattoos itself on my shoulder blade as I fall in love over and over again with everyone and everything. February 2007 I am now tucked away on Ward's Island in Toronto. It is white silent paradise here. In the evenings, I wrap up in shawls and blankets, and sit on the steps of the little patio off the house, staring at the trees and the frozen lake behind them. December 2006
I think I would do anything to have a little deer as a pet.
The days of the eleventh month are beautifully calm, hourless and gray.
I bring out all the woolen sweaters I own and wrap myself up, belt them, tug on vintage cowboy boots, and saunter down the main street of the small town I am visiting. I daydream of Berlin and a piano in the spare room in Mitte as I walk and kick the red leaves around. I am usually very nice to leaves, but once they turn red and fall on the ground, that's it. I shuffle and swirl them violently about with the tip of my boot and become engrossed in the bizarre ballet they create in the process.
August 2006 Fred The Dancing Dog July 2006 Children in the neighbourhood now spend the better part of the afternoon outside, running around and yelping. Screams of "it's mine!" "no it's mine!" slice through the air and scale the telephone wires right to the third floor. I peer at the children over the top of my enormous sunglasses while lounging in the courtyard, vaguely amused. Summer urchins, born and raised downtown. It's theirs, allright - just as it was mine when I was a small downtown-child. The city is intoxicating with its mix of exhaust fumes and berry-flavour. There are many summer tourists now and I wholeheartedly adore them; I love their freshly-showered looks and carefully-planned traveling outfits, the way they clutch their maps and look far into the distance. I adore them all, and decide to pretend to be a tourist-for-one-day. I wander around downtown, imagining I have never in my life been there, have never seen any of the shops. I marvel at the parking machines and the Starbucks on every corner. I go to my favorite cafe and the waitress stares incredulously at me as I pretend to have never stepped foot in the place. I read every page of the local newspaper as though I know nothing of the politics, policies and police. It is an altogether brilliant day and I feel thoroughly refreshed by the time I return home to the third floor. Possibly the next time you visit me at this website it will be different. All I can say is, get ready for the balloons. to be continued. June 2006 I gathered it all up in the old sputtering red car and played songs for new people. Glockenspiels, party favors, sequined ballerina skirts - it is good to get out of the livingroom. Meanwhile, peonies are very moody, I realize. They swoop in dramatically (I could hear them laughing and chatting excitedly all the way up on the third floor), they burst out of their shells and flirt with everyone - and then they quite suddenly droop down into the mud. At first I thought they had simply gotten too top-heavy but then I realized no – they were just moody. New songs come pouring out of the old piano for to record in July. I pick up the guitar, guiltily pick a chord, and immediately put the poor lovely thing back in its case. I’m a pianoman. June is all parties. The lovers head east, blowing good-bye-kisses from long tapered fingers. I look down the expanse of highway and note that it seems to go on forever. Or, as far as my eyes can see. To be continued. May 2006 May is when eyes re-sparkle, décolletés are exposed downtown, top forty booms out of open-car-windows. I always feel a bit sad in May. May means I can no longer tuck in under my woolen scarves; spending an afternoon in the cinema seems wasteful when it is so terribly beautiful outside; everyone at the café wants to sit on the patio and it is lonely to sit inside by the un-lit fireplace; the sun continues to shine at 8 o'clock in the evening. May. There is a general swoosh of altogether-now that I watch from the sidelines. So, I decide to do some warmer things. I plant a vegetable garden and very carefully (and with a great degree of seriousness) insert popsicle sticks into the earth beside the stoic little seeds, popsicle sticks neatly hand-printed with the words 'lettuce' 'radish' 'peas' 'cuke'. I practice my hula-hoop in the courtyard by the big-headed tulips. I paint another coat of red on my old bicycle, whistling the entire score from Mame. It all makes me feel better. I find a bunch of old diaries in an antique shop down a lane. I buy them (someone's innermost life) for less than $10; I curl up in the old chair with the stack and read with amazement and amusement. I wonder what will one day become of my own innermost life. Jane Jacobs dies; my eyes well up at her sweet-face photograph in the newspaper. I met her once at a party a few years ago - to me, she was the most fascinating person in a room buzzing with celebrated indie musicians and art stars. Few people seemed to realize who she was. We talked for an hour - she told me her granddaughter was taking clarinet lessons and I was certain I had never heard of anything nicer. Jane Jacobs 1916 - 2006. April 2006 I read yesterday that all the children in Ghana were cheering because of the total eclipse. It occurred to me that I would probably love Ghana, very much. Kittens are being born now. I head off to the humane society and hold them all, telling them they will most certainly be okay. I sign my name in the volunteer book. I decide to change my name once in awhile. One day I sign in as "Dr. M.J. Mooks". The next day I sign in as "Miss Elspeth Apostrophe". The next is "Lady Sarah Williams-Jones-Williams". The kittens get excited to see me, and mew louder in adoration when they recognize it's me (no matter who I signed in as). They fall over themselves vying for my attention; I do believe they like my words of reassurance. Plus I am learning to purr, and I hold them close to my throat so they can feel me practicing. In the column to the right of my various monikers in the volunteer book is the information: "Held Kittens". I stand in the courtyard in the afternoon in my rainboots and listen to the rumpled old leaves whisper secrets to each other. A train sings in A minor and heads east. the website will soon undergo a significant overhaul...get ready for the balloons. to be continued. March 2006 I decide to spend the day saying 'yes' to everything. Do I need a transfer, yes. Do I take milk, yes. Would I like to leave a message, yes. Would I like a business or residential listing, yes. Yes yes. The trick is, of course, learning to say 'no'. I am a terrible 'no'-sayer. So I decide the next day to do a bit of practicing, and start saying no to everything. It is not as hard as I think. Pretty soon, I even start enjoying myself. I circle every "no" there is to circle in a magazine questionnaire. I say no to the Jehovah's, no to a lawyer, no to a nosy neighbour. It becomes clear to me that 'no' begets far fewer problems and scrapes than 'perhaps' and 'I'll let you know'. Meanwhile I stare for a long time out a downtown window, contemplating the snow that is stuck in the folds of an old roof across the street. to be continued. Snowing 2006 The small-town churchbells are muffled by white. I hold hands at 3 a.m. with my sleepy friend - we whisper about lost lovers and lovely legs... Autumn 2005 Les Dangereuses is released. The Third Floor and I rehearse in the beautiful old hall in preparation for our two concerts, carefully poring over charts and clefs, laughing at harmonies and crunching on apples. I turn a year older and chop my hair off like a boy's. I take latenight walks down alleys between old downtown buildings; the wind gets under my skin and makes my eyes look fierce (so I think) - and no one bothers me because I am Tough. Meanwhile a small part becomes shy. Cameras click, windows are dressed with images in black and white, I speak into radio microphones. It's easier from the stage. I become addicted to gossip magazines, the flimsy, shiny ones that cost $3.45. Afternoons, I sit in cafés engrossed in pages of botox, drug problems, infidelity, beautiful girls who won't eat. I find it all very fascinating. Each week I show up at my newsstand and cheerily slap my $3.45 on the counter for the latest tome of junk. I know I ought to find it depressing, but I don't. My gullibility somehow offers reprieve and I carefully turn the pages, eyebrows gravely furrowed. Perhaps it's some bizarre validation of normalcy, since it's very heroic to be famous. I take comfort that we're not so ruined we can't take the gossip magazines with a good degree of admiration, albeit with a little grain of salt - all for just $3.45. I buy an enormous old Volvo stationwagon for to fit cellos and glockenspiels, dancing dogs and third floor neighbours. The engine coughs and sputters in preparation for the announcement of a Les Dangereuses tour... To be continued. Summer 2005 Les Dangereuses is recorded. A choir of small girls, a young trumpet player, a large drum set: all in the bedroom on the Third Floor, muffled by quilts and old photographs. Outside, the neighbourhood glazes over with sex-frosted eyes, fame and hate spit out of newspaper boxes, hunched hooded heads disappear into downtown alleys. Summer In The City. A bicycle bell is repeatedly rung by a small child in a parking lot. The birds by the third floor window send wildly disapproving chirps down to him; the symphony is so pretty that I record the whole thing and put it up to boil with the rest of the dangerous ones. Fire burns in the country, a woman loses her babies in the lake - the third floor seems a distant dream, as unreal as anything imagined. But the curtain draws again, the sky purples, the show begins. Always, always. I dream about standing in front of cast iron gates, ferociously protecting the people behind them. To be continued. Spring 2005 Sunday evenings at the Drake Hotel (www.thedrakehotel.ca) get more raucous and boisterous; the performances are so fun that no one wants to go home and I am invited to stay through April. Les Dangereuses, originally supposed to be pressed-and-for-sale by now, has had to recover from flu, strep-throat, pneumonia, and crashed hard-drives that could not be revived despite freezing (as Monsieur Janes advised). The third floor is music again though, and two rescued kittens excitedly bounce around when I play the highest peals on the glockenspiel. I got chased 'round the internet on a stolen red scooter. I am safe now, taking privacy for granted once The Ontario Arts Council blesses me with generosity and goodness. I skip joyously along the shore of the Toronto Island in Maryjanes and a poncho, and write down my plans under a tree. The eyes brighten and blue once more; there is a sweetness in spring dolls, boy-kissing and lightened hearts. The songs unfold in the old piano and wind their way onto the tape; I barely have anything to do with it. I dream about Serge Gainsbourg and eating Rosemarie pears. The sun sets later. To be continued. Winter 2005 My ice skates hang in the back of the closet gathering dust. I wrap myself in vintage sheepskin and skulk I hear a song about me that a long-ago lover wrote, it darkens my mood to hear my reflection and recall coffee-pool eyes and lies. The tsunami made everyone and everything stop; I believe it has made many of us feel that we have finally had enough of some things. I pull up my own spine by strings. February slicks by like a sweet girl ruined by Hollywood, the slush is like tears not-really-cried. To be continued. January to Spring 2004 Winter trickled by in varying shades of charcoal and yawning white. I bought a bright pink mohair scarf from a vintage shop and wrapped it round and round. I went ice-skating on a downtown pond, mittened and red-cheeked. I knew a young gentleman named Wolfgang for three days and loved him enough for three lifetimes. I decided to sing some jazz in a nightclub and so put up a show with a trio of magicians, who I named Un Trio D’Hommes Trés Gentils. Adrian Farrugia on piano, Drew Birston on double bass, and Stich Wynston on drums. We got very dressed up, and played old songs in a dirty backroom while everyone watched. I played my old wooden piano in the afternoons: sonatinas and gigues and bagatelles. A small white cat namedEloise, who has one blue eye and one green eye and who will stay a little while, sat by and listened solemnly. The sun streamed through the stained-glass windows of the apartment, casting yellow and green on the wood floor, and whispering promises in my ear. To be continued. I lived in Hollywood, slept in a spare room and stole pomegranates from a tree down the street. I recorded a piano track for a famous pop star. I was stoned from jasmine all the time and therefore couldn’t speak in full sentences. I wrote a play called Songs From The Third Floor, and began recording my next record. My live show is sitting in the corner for now, on a chair I built from matchsticks. To be continued. |
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